[philh]

Suppose you want to sue Megacorp over a few thousand dollars. You're 95% confident of winning, but if you lose, you need to pay Megacorp's legal fees. Megacorp's legal fees are always going to be high, but they can make them even higher than necessary (good luck regulating this), perhaps to the point where if you lose, you're bankrupt.

Result: no one sues Megacorp for small amounts of money. Megacorp can get away with lots of things that they would otherwise be sued for.

(I don't know if this happens in reality, but I do think it's a legit thing to worry about.)

[pbhjpbhj]

But in practice, in the UK f.e., actual costs aren't awarded but instead a scale of reasonable costs is set.

That way Megacorp can hire 100 barristers if they want but if you lose you pay ordinary levels of costs. It might still bankrupt an individual but Megacorp can't just financially pressure all opponents in giving up in cases when Megacorp will obviously lose no matter who represents them in court.

Also, Small Claims (which I think USA has too), has very limited awards of costs, I'd usually contended just on paper and covers small charges. Allowing you to sue Megacorp by filling out a simple form and not even enlisting a lawyer.

A system with an assumption of awarding reasonable costs seems most preferable.